Essay: Talent Management For Global Organizations - A Case Study.

Case Study: Atlantis Global Corporation

In the 21st-century global economy, talent management has become a key strategic tool, which places greater responsibility on the shoulders of human resources (HR) managers and senior leadership in organizations. The ability of organizations to manage their global talent efficiently makes the difference between success and failure, competitive advantage and bankruptcy. Rapidly changing connectivity, technology advances, economic and business transformations, the ever-emergent competition, demographic changes, and the coming to age of a new generation of workers are having an impact on talent supply and demand.

The quest to gain a competitive advantage and tap into new and emerging markets has created a significant shift in organizational operation and growth patterns. Organizations today are increasingly operating across their home continents and beyond. Companies are no longer operating in silos.

Atlantis Global Corporation (AGC) is a multinational organization that engages in the development, manufacture, and marketing of electronic circuit boards for use in high-definition TV screens. Although the design centers are located in the United States, the bulk of the manufacturing processes are carried out at their overseas subsidiaries. The electronic circuit boards are primarily sold to Original Equipment manufacturers located in North and South America, Africa, and the Asia/Pacific region. Headquartered in the Midwest United States, AGC has subsidiaries in three locations, on three continents: Subsidiary A in Asia, Subsidiary B in Africa, and Subsidiary C in South America. In all three locations, the subsidiaries are located in industrial parks or centers. These locations were selected for strategic reasons, including an abundance of raw materials for the company’s products, the availability of a labor force, and a rapidly growing customer base. Within the industrial parks, it is not uncommon to find two or three organizations competing in the same market segment and for the same labor force.

As part of its global human capital staffing strategy, AGC relocated several key people to leadership positions at each of the three subsidiaries. By placing key personnel from headquarters in leadership positions, AGC assumed a unified culture. Senior leadership envisioned that the subsidiaries would be self-sustainable in 2 years and profitable thereafter. A lot of capital, both tangible and intangible, has been committed to making the subsidiaries functional.

AGC has approximately 84,000 employees, most of whom are highly skilled and specially trained in the operations they perform. On average, it takes 3–6 months to fully train employees in each of the many operations of the parent company and its subsidiaries. Although the head count at the three subsidiaries has remained fairly constant, there have been a number of employees who have left the company for a variety of reasons. As employees leave, others are hired to replace them, but no one knows the exact number of employees who left the company or the reasons why they have separated.

New Leadership Styles and Organizational Culture

At the subsidiaries, line and middle managers are concerned with having the right number of employees at each function or workstation. The operations manual, which the line and middle managers follow religiously, indicates that all staff must be fully trained and certified before they should be allowed to work on their own. Further, this requirement indicates that if someone has been certified before leaving the company, he or she must be retrained and recertified if rehired—no exceptions—even if his or her absence has just been a week. On the other hand, a trained and certified employee who is out on vacation or medical leave for a month is not similarly required.

The Issues

Since operations began in the three subsidiaries, AGC has failed to meet its financial obligations, and profits are lagging. This is beginning to show in the company’s balance sheets and is taking a toll on the organization’s financial bottom line. Although the company’s structure is designed for adaptability in a fast-changing market, several other factors were overlooked when the company selected locations for the subsidiaries. These include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Intercultural communication issues
• Political and regulatory conditions of the host country and the subsidiaries
• Diversity and multiculturalism
• Employee retention and motivation issues
• Employee dissatisfaction
• Performance issues
• An overall global human capital strategy that takes into account the home and host country nationals

AGC, often considered the leader in this market, is in jeopardy of losing that title when the end-of-year reports come out in 3 months. This is a critical time for the organization and the senior leadership team is very concerned. They need to find out what is happening to the organization, report to the shareholders, and rectify the situation.

John Dawson, the CEO, COO, and Chairman of the Board of Directors at AGC, is deeply concerned about the future of this company. Past strategies have not advanced AGC to a leadership position in the global market. John believes that he has done everything that can be done to optimize the company and is reluctant to change the present strategic course. He is a reluctant risk taker and must be convinced that changes to the organization have value before changing direction.

John is currently working with Shawn Williams, the newly recruited Vice President of Global Human Capital Management at AGC. His priority is to help diagnose and address the company's human capital issues. Shawn brings with him extensive experience in resolving global problems, and he is recognized as an expert in the field of change management and viewed as a motivational leader. John and Shawn will be meeting soon to align goals and set a new strategic path for Atlantis Global Corporation.

As the new external consultant for AGC, you will be working closely with Shawn to establish a cross-cultural team that will address the company's global challenges. You will provide guidance and recommendations regarding each objective and anticipated outcome. This is a critical assignment because failure could lead to the dissolution of AGC.

You and Shawn are now ready to meet with John and AGC’s investor group. Shawn calls to check in with you about the executive report. You need to add one more section of information that will help ensure that AGC remains proactive and competitive in a quickly changing global environment. You have enjoyed working with Shawn on the change management project and know that you will soon have fond memories of helping AGC be more aware of the value of human capital.

1. Now that the change management plan has been completed, describe AGC’s new leadership styles and organizational culture.
2. Are there any potential internal or external threats that AGC should be prepared to address in its business environment?
3. How can AGC detect these potential internal and external threats?
4. What are some methods that AGC can use to protect the organization from these internal and external threats?

Case Study: Atlantis Global Corporation

Due to the change management plan, the Atlantis Global Corporation has implemented some new type of leadership styles and organizational culture within their organization. The change management is used in this organization because the Atlantis Global Corporation was facing problem in the human capital management. By using this change management, they were able to support and prepare the individuals, organizations and teams to bring some change in the organization.

For implementing the change management plan, the Atlantis Global Corporation has implemented some new leadership styles. Previously the Atlantis Global Corporation was having the leadership style of the autocratic which was implemented by the Jaw Dawson who is the CFO, CEO and the chairman of the organization. John does not take any ideas or any type of suggestions from the employees which was the main reason behind the employee dissatisfaction within the organization (Clarke, 2013). Due to the change management, Shawn Williams has taken charge of the global human capital management at the AGC. Shawn has implemented some new leadership styles which are  democratic in nature. Shawn has implemented the feedback system from the employees of the organization. He has also implemented the leadership style of positive communication. This type of leadership style is very much beneficial for all parties involved in this.

Due to the effectiveness of the change management, the organizational culture of the Atlantis Global Corporation has been changed. The main changes in the AGC are the belief, symbols, morals, traditions and the inner language (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2015). For the implementation of the change management communication at the all branch level has been changed. In this new organizational culture, the CEO, managers, employees and the other workers are trained properly in respect of the human capital management. In this culture, every top-level position of the organization is filled with some person who is capable of utilize the human capital management style. This changes in the culture of the organization will help the organization in their present issue of the employee retention, productivity and communication.

It is very much important for every organization to identify its potential internal and external threats for the effectiveness of the business. Due to the business model of the organization, the main internal threats which can be faced by the AGC is related with the leadership styles, goals, policies and the mission statement of the organization (Onraet, Dhont & Van Hiel, 2014). Apart from this the other internal threats which can be faced by the Atlantis Global Corporation includes the structures, systems and the peoples.

New Leadership Styles and Organizational Culture

 When considering the external threats, the main threats which can be faced by the organizations is the market competition, economy, social conditions and the most important factor which is the customers. Though these factors are totally external, still this factors can affect the organization heavily.

The Atlantis Global Corporation can easily identify both the internal and the external threats by using the environmental scanning and by the implementation of the SWOT analysis. The AGC will be able to detect the threats by the SWOT analysis because of this breakdown different type of aspects of the organization (Bull et al., 2016). By use of SWOT analysis the weaknesses, threats, opportunities and the strengths of the organization can be analysed easily. Also, based on the analysis this technique can categorise the factors based on the external and the internal factors. Thus from the analysis easily the internal and external threats factors can be analysed. This SWOT analysis can help the AGC in their strategic planning program.

With the SWOT analysis, environmental scanning is another factor for detecting the external and internal threats (Du Toit 2016). Environmental scanning helps to analyse the environmental factor properly. In the environmental scanning after detecting the threats, the threats are acknowledged, and the solution is determined for minimizing the threats.

As discussed in the above section, the AGC can use the SWOT analysis method and the environmental analysis method for protecting the organization from the external and internal threats. As the threats of the organization can be analysed using the SWOT analysis, this analysed data can be used to monitor the threats properly and can be prevented from getting a big issue for the organization (Suh, 2014). On the other hand, the environmental scanning allows the Atlantis Global Corporation to analyse, identify and provide solutions for the detected threats for the organization. This environmental scanning is the process which conducts a survey systematically and does the data interpretation to detect the external opportunities and the threats. From the external factors, this methods can also find relevant data from its market competitor which will help the AGC to gain a competitive advantage.

References:

Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2015). Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress. Routledge.

Bull, J. W., Jobstvogt, N., Böhnke-Henrichs, A., Mascarenhas, A., Sitas, N., Baulcomb, C., ... & Carter-Silk, E. (2016). Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats: A SWOT analysis of the ecosystem services framework. Ecosystem Services, 17, 99-111.

Clarke, S. (2013). Safety leadership: A meta?analytic review of transformational and transactional leadership styles as antecedents of safety behaviours. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 86(1), 22-49.

Du Toit, A. S. (2016). Using environmental scanning to collect strategic information: A South African survey. International Journal of Information Management, 36(1), 16-24.

Onraet, E., Dhont, K., & Van Hiel, A. (2014). The relationships between internal and external threats and right-wing attitudes: A three-wave longitudinal study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(6), 712-725.

Suh, J. (2014). Theory and reality of integrated rice–duck farming in Asian developing countries: A systematic review and SWOT analysis. Agricultural Systems, 125, 74-81.